Customer Reviews

Stephen King's Danse Macabre

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As many of the other reviews here imply, whether or not you'll like DANSE MACABRE really depends on how much you're interested in reading what and how people think about literature. Obviously, being a fan of horror stories doesn't mean you like to read about what people think about horror, and from the reviews people wrote here, I'd say they expected to read a Stephen King novel.

Still, this seems to me like a good book for people who don't want to get too deep into literary critism but would like to think about horror at another level. The book's best feature is King's breezy readable style. I'm surprised at the people who had a hard time getting through it because it's an extremely readable book. (Again, I can only guess it's because these people don't like this kind of book--they bought it expecting something else). I've used this book in a course I've taught on horror film and fiction, and it's been pretty well received by my students. The drawbacks (if you think of them as drawbacks) are:

1. King has little to say about his own fiction or the many film versions of it.

2. It jumps all over the place. King does have some intersting things to say about novels like FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA but not all that much. That's fair enough--this book is as much an account of what makes horror interesting for King as it is about the horror genre--but it leaves me wanting more.

Good book for someone who's just getting into reading about horror as a genre, but probably less than satisfying to somebody who wants more. I'd actually recommend Twitchell's DREADFUL PLEASURES as a better introduction to horror--but I'd bet people who were bored with this book would also hate that one (even though I think it's quite readable).

This is my favorite Stephen King book--I've read it considerably more times than any of his other works. I don't think it's any secret what makes this book so enjoyable--it's really what makes all of his books work--his storytelling power. He has such a friendly, compelling narrative voice--it's like he's casually, and yet powerfully sharing secrets with you, and you can't wait to hear what he has to say next. It might help to enjoy DANSE MACABRE if you are a horror fiction/film fanatic, but then again, it might just make you one even if you're not--it had that effect on me. I tried to see as many of the films and read as many of the books he discussed as I could. (I don't share his warm feelings for the movie "Prophesy" or Peter Straub's "Ghost Story," but join him in highly recommending Ramsey Campbell's horribly titled "The Doll Who Ate His Mother" and the unforgettable "Dawn of the Dead.") Next I moved on to the list of recommended books and movies at the end, and found most of those very worthwhile as well. If you're borderline compulsive like I am, finding a list like that is probably a bad thing--you can't rest until you've checked everything off it, which would probably take a lifetime. I've worked on it on and off for over a decade and am not much more than half done. But the quest goes on, for which I must thank Mr. King, and more specifically, this delightful, engaging, illuminating book.

I have read many books of criticism and opinion on the subject of horror fiction. However, no single author has been able to cover the field of modern horror better than Stephen King. In Danse Macabre King makes the field of horror accessible to the general reader. There are books which explain the Freudian overtones of Dracula or the anti-establishment message of Night of the Living Dead which is, for all practical purposes, useless. English and Cinema majors may find it useful, but the general reader has no time or concern for these trifles. King, while at times veering off topic, gives the reader a road map for the field of horror. He introduces and discusses writers which the general reader of fiction may never have heard of, like James Herbert and Harlan Ellison. And never does the book become boring. King's love for the genre shows in this work. It is like attending an Einstein lecture on Physics; it may get a bit complicated at times, but you know that old Al will bring an energy and enthusiasm to the subject which no one else could ever hope to copy.

Other Books Recommended: Stephen Jones and Kim Newman's Horror 100 Best Books (Unusual, Unorthodox, Unbelievable, The Single best book on horror by one than more author)

In a perfect world Stephen King would revise "Danse Macabre" and offer us an updated edition of his look at the world of horror in literature and films. After all, it has been two decades since "Danse Macabre" was first published and horror is bigger business than ever. Since then King has published several dozen books, including his magnum opus "It," while several notable authors in the field, such as Clive Barker and Laurell K. Hamilton, have emerged. Certainly it would be fascinating to see where King places Pinhead and Anita Blake in the rich tapestry of horror.

King professes that this analysis of horror is "a moving, rhythmic search" for "The place where we live at our most primitive level." But "Danse Macabre" is not just an academic colloquium because there are large measures of autobiography and criticism thrown into the mix as well. For King everything is fair game and he is as likely to talk about "Tourist Trap," a personal favorite film that the rest of us have never heard about, as he is "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby." This is a book where you can pick it up and start reading at any point and find it interesting. After all, this has clearly been the man's life.

I have been reading through "Danse Macabre" again, looking for ideas for a reading list for a class on Modern Fantasy in which Horror literature is a large component. However, in addition to commenting on or at least mentioning dozens of horror novels and short stories, King also sets up a basic schema for considering such works. In his chapters on "Tales of the Hook" and "Tales of the Tarot," he lays out what are basically genres, focusing on archetypes that are revealed by "Frankenstein," "Dracula" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (although I think he could have overlooked the liabilities of "The Turn of the Screw" or found a better alternative so he could include the ghost story in his tarot). Consequently, if it were more up to date I would seriously consider having this as the "textbook" for a class on horror. Certainly King will provoke students of horror into some sort of a response, and if you were to use the book as it now stands you might even be able to get the cherubs to extend King's analysis or fill in the gaps given the past twenty years of horror in film, literature and television.

When it comes to serious studies in horror by actual authors (which are usually much more useful than those by academics, although those are generally good for a laugh), there's Lovecraft's "Supernatural Literature" and this.

In terms of sheer fun, this book is a goldmine and very well thought out. You can read a chapter separately, or read the whole thing at one shot, but you keep going back to it and rereading it.

Especially useful to film fans and scholars is King's analysis and dissection of the horror movie. I'm recommending this to a friend of mine in the hopes that he will loosen up a bit after reading King's sometimes-hilarious take on the truly awful horror movies out there.

"Danse Macabre" is both a lot of fun and a great study of an often misunderstood genre. Take a look!

For any serious fan of horror, Stephen King's Danse Macabre is an invaluable book, right up there with Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature. To use a rough analogy, it is as if Hitchcock wrote a book on suspense (actually, Truffaut's interviews with him amount to just that). Some of the negative reviews I've read on this site claim that King is too digressive. Well, it is digressive - the paperback clocks in at just over 400 pages - but Stephen King is not an academic, and he does not write like one. For me, that made this scholarly work all the more readable and enjoyable. (I am a King fan, so my opinion is biased).

The stated goal of the book is cover Horror from 1950 to 1980. However, he cannot do this without turning to the horror "heavy-hitters" of literature - Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. According to King, these books define the three archetypes (he calls them "Tarot Cards") of horror - the Vampire, the Thing with No Name, and the Werewolf, respectively. (There is a fourth card for the Ghost or the Bad Place, but that can't be narrowed down to one book.)

He discusses movies, books, and television. What is refreshing is how critical King is - even about his own novels. He has bad things to say about a lot of popular works - he will annoy fans of The Exorcist, The Twilight Zone, and other popular books. But, as any lover of horror movies must admit, King opens up about his love of bad movies and even finds nice things to say about the movies, The Amityville Horror and The Prophecy. (I am also shocked about how many nice things he has to say about Stanley Kubrick and The Shining - a film he supposedly doesn't like.)

Fortunately, I had read most of the books and seen most of the movies that King discusses. He also provides invaluable appendices for further reading and viewing. What is of tremendous interest is King's analysis of his contemporary writers, who have been so gracious as to discuss their own works with him. Here we find the best commentary ANYWHERE on Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, and Richard Matheson. King also tackles the questions of why we read horror and if it has a deleterious effect on society.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR ANY HORROR/FANTASY/SCI-FI GEEK!!!

Of all the Stephen King books that I've read ("The Shining" continues to be my favorite), Danse Macabre is the one that I've reread the most times. In fact, I've lost count of the number of times I've pulled this book off my shelf with the intent of reading a chapter or two and ended up rereading the entire book.

Let me first say that Mr. King's memory is not the greatest. He gets many details wrong in this book, and even the updated version that King released in the mid-80's did not catch all the mistakes. This, however, can be forgiven, because King wrote a very readable and enjoyable (if brief and sketchy) history of horror in literature, the movies, radio, and TV. This is by no means a definitive book on the genre, but it is arguably the most fun you may ever have reading about the subject.

Even with the errors (most involve plots of movies that King does not remember correctly), and even though this is a non-fiction work, Danse Macabre sets a defi! nite mood that many writers of horror fiction have tried, but failed, to create. King's frame of reference in writing this book is based on his own early experience with the genre. He talks of listening to the classic radio program "Lights Out" with his aging grandfather, of the movie theatre manager who stopped the film "Earth vs the Flying Saucers" to announce the launching of the Russian satellite Sputnik, of an incident that his mother told him about horrifying experience he had as a child, an incident so terrible that he does not remember it to this day. This book, by necessity, is rooted in King's childhood, the place where the ghosts and the goblins and all the other unnamable terrors are usually born in children. If you love the horror genre and would like King's unique insight on the definitive books, television shows and movies of the genre, this book is highly recommended.

Stephen King's first real shot at non-fiction, Danse Macabre is a look at the horror genre in general. Easy to follow and filled with pictures galore, this is King shooting the sh*t about something that has always fascinated him. Charming and slightly off-kilter. King fans will appreciate his honesty here. Not for the causal reader, however. Was this, or would this be, the first Stephen King book I ever read or would ever read? No. Definitely not. Something to look into after you've had a proper introduction to King's body of work.

Dig it!

I bought Danse Macabre when I was still in high school and read it so many times that it fell apart. This book is a sweeping peep into Stephen King's (circa the early 80s) head and the experience is very much like what you would expect to feel if you could've sat down on the couch with him and a couple of beers.

The book jumps back between the 50s and 80s all the way through. One minute you'll be reading about Dracula the next you'll read about young Steve's experiment with a dead cat. There is a lot of horror ground covered in this book, perhaps too much. King goes from a brilliant discussion of the 3 great granddaddies of horror: Dracula, Frankenstien, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to the best and worst of horror movies to horror on TV (Interestingly enough King didn't seem to grasp how great, Thriller, Outer Limits and Twilight Zone were) and then sort of splatters along with observations on modern horror novels, a few writers that King admired and throws in a couple of other oddities as well.

The book is very self indulgent. It appears to not have been edited and you have to remember that King was still a young man when he wrote it. If some of his views seem terribly shallow it's the youth talking and I find myself wishing that King would update the book. The big flaw of the book is King's really, really annoying Vietnam tangents. They are all over the book and go on for several paragraphs and don't have a thing to do with the book's stated subject.

Danse Macabre isn't perfect but about 75% of it is extremely entertaining. If you skip over the boring parts, the obsessive parts and don't mind the sloppy last chapter and if you really love the horror genre then it is book worth putting on your "keeper" list.

I have probably read "Danse Macabre" more times than I have any other book. Most rereads occur when there is nothing else to do, since the book seems to always just be lying around...anyway, that's of no help to you, the prospective buyer Since you are even reading this review, you're probably in the frame of mind necessary to appreciate "Danse Macabre". The book is written in an extremely casual style, full of many asides and non-sequiturs, which only makes it more engaging and extremely entertaining. The one minor squabble I have with King over the book is that he has not updated it yet (in mass-market paperback, anyway), even though it was written over twenty years ago. It would be very cool to see him continue to modify and reprint it, as Walt Whitman did with "Leaves Of Grass". That's really splitting hairs, though; it's a fantastic read and a great reference guide, not to mention the best view into Stephen King's psyche that you will probably ever find. Just buy the book and be happy.